Shank found in cell of man who shot soldiers

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — Corrections officers found a sharpened metal shank hidden in the prison cell of a man who shot two soldiers outside an Arkansas military recruiting station three years ago, a prison system official said Friday.

Officers found the makeshift weapon in Abdulhakim Muhammad’s mattress during a routine search in April, Arkansas Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press.

“It looks like it had been sharpened at one end and appeared to be stainless steel,” Wilson said. She said the piece of metal was about 12 inches long and a half-inch wide, and that it had been stripped from his cell door, which has since been fixed.

Muhammad, 27, also failed to obey orders and used threatening language toward an officer, Wilson said. He was placed in isolation for 30 days and wasn’t allowed to have visitors, use the phone or buy anything from the prison commissary for 60 days, she said.

Wilson said Muhammad hasn’t been cited for any rules violations since April.

Muhammad pleaded guilty to capital murder, attempted capital murder and gun charges last year for opening fire outside a military recruiting station in 2009, killing Pvt. William Andrew Long and wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula. A judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole, plus additional years and life sentences. He’s serving his time in a single-man cell at the Varner SuperMax Unit in southeast Arkansas.

Muhammad, who converted to Islam in college, told The Associated Press that the shootings were an act of war on the U.S. He professed ties to al-Qaida, but his defense attorneys and his father, Melvin Bledsoe, argued that Muhammad’s claims are just the delusions of someone who suffers from mental problems.